← all The Weekly Substandard episodes
#132. The Substandard on Sicario and Sequels Ranked
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Sicario: Day of the Soldado and sequels ranked: Vic is away on a Disney cruise (pre-taped segment). Sonny reviews Day of the Soldado: he's hugely fond of the Denis Villeneuve original, and the sequel's core idea is strong — cartels trafficking Muslim terrorists across the border, government takes the gloves off, Josh Brolin sets cartels against each other. But the film abandons its entire terrorist-attack plot with one throwaway line (the terrorists were American-born from New Jersey), then keeps Benicio Del Toro alive after being shot through the cheeks, which destroys all the tension. The ending goes weirdly saccharine. The final word "Sicario" is undercut by arbitrary language-mixing throughout. JVL ranks his bleakest-of-bleakness films: Traffic (least bleak), Sicario (middle), and The Counselor (bleakest); Vic nominates Gone Baby Gone as bleakest of all. Matrix sequels sidebar: JVL says Revolutions breaks the promises of the first film; Sonny defends Reloaded's Merovingian sequence; Vic admits JVL's original review talked him out of seeing Revolutions at the time. Sequels that should not exist (ranked): Vic's list includes The Two Jakes, Police Academy 5 (no Steve Guttenberg), Cannonball Run 2 (Menudo finale, off-screen Sinatra), and Caddyshack 2. Shared bad-sequel nominations include US Marshals, Blair Witch 2, Blues Brothers 2000, Basic Instinct 2, Wall Street 2, S. Darko, and Son of the Mask. Sonny's good-unnecessary-sequels list: The Godfather Part II (#1), The Matrix Reloaded, the Rocky sequels (sub-ranked: IV, Creed, Balboa, II, III), Blair Witch 2 (as fascinating disaster), and 2010. Vic notes the Lowe's dishwasher saga lives on — friend Adam White had his own Lowe's nightmare; JVL went to Home Depot for a baby water table pump and was treated beautifully by a woman in an apron. Episode closes with a June month-in-review song by Scotty Henthorne.
Box Office: Fallen Kingdom $60M; Incredibles 2 $45.5M; Sicario: Day of the Soldado $19M (outperformed tracking by ~50%).
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00You should move to a small town, where the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You're not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now.
Vic00:00:23Hello and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by The Black Tux and ExpressVPN. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you, The Substandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at a podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL, I was waiting to see if there was news on the local station about some sort of violence at a Lowe's in Woodbridge, and it was pretty quiet. I'm happy to hear it, but what is going on?
Sonny00:00:58We need a Lowe's update.
JVL00:01:00Well, this is Thursday, so I believe that we had a successful installation of the dishwasher, which was sitting in the middle of my kitchen for the last five days. But I can't be sure, because there are some vagaries in the space-time continuum.
Vic00:01:19Yes, I understand that, because we're going to go back in time in a bit.
Sonny00:01:22So your dishwasher, your 39-decibel dishwasher, was just sitting in the middle of the kitchen? In the middle of your floor, for five days, until it was installed this Thursday morning? Yep, installed by... Question. Did the Lowe's people just drop it off and leave it there? They did. Question. Is your other, was, for this five-day period, was your other dishwasher in full service? Was it there and operating?
JVL00:01:53Yes.
Sonny00:01:53Okay.
JVL00:01:54So you had dishwashing capabilities. Limited. There is a crack in the motor housing, which means that I have probably, like, three more washes possible before the flood pan filled, and we tripped into flood mode. That's no good.
Sonny00:02:16What does that mean? Explain that.
JVL00:02:17It just means the dishwasher stops working.
Vic00:02:19Oh, that's when you start seeing water on the floor? No, no. It starts coming out like that.
JVL00:02:23So these things have what's called flood mode, which is when the flood pan tips past a certain thing, there's a sensor saying, hey, stop. Stop what you're doing right now. And it would shut it off. It shuts everything off, and it prevents the water from actually overflowing. But what was wrong with this was going to cost as much to fix as a new dishwasher.
Vic00:02:41Question. Yes. Did you actually end up going too low?
JVL00:02:46I did not. I did not. I was a little bit overheated last Thursday.
Vic00:02:56Understandably, though. Is that fair to say? Understandably. When you're on the phone that long. It'll drive you crazy.
Sonny00:03:00You were so mad that you were afraid of what you would do at the Lowe's. Is that basically?
JVL00:03:05No. No. What it was was I hit a period of hanger where I was both angry but also intensely hungry.
Sonny00:03:14Hanger. Yes. This is a common phrase.
JVL00:03:15And so I went home from the studio first to consume a little bit of protein, non-carbohydrate, just protein, no carbs. Did you just eat like- Still no carbs.
Sonny00:03:25Just eat chunks of like- Cheese and meat. Lunch meat. Cheese and meat. Just grabbed handfuls of meat. Just shoved it in your face. You're like, ah.
JVL00:03:32Yep. Just put a banger right in the mouth. And I forgot here in the States you call it a sausage in the mouth. Very good.
Vic00:03:43Very funny.
JVL00:03:43And while I was finishing shoving all the meat to the back of my mouth hole- Like baby bird style. You just threw your throat back. Mine. And you were like, oh, oh, like that? Sort of. My cell phone rang and it was the driver. The driver of the truck informing me, hey, I'm 20 minutes out from your house. And so it all worked out. Now, Mike from Lowe's never bothered calling me back to tell me that the driver was going to call me.
Sonny00:04:10So you decided not to refuse delivery.
JVL00:04:13I decided at that point with it, I mean, it was here. I hadn't yet gone to Lord Bezos. And so I just said, let's just do this thing. Let's just do this thing.
Sonny00:04:24You know, bird in the hand. Washer in the hand. Better than one in the Bosch.
JVL00:04:29Put my dishware. Oh, very good. Two in the Bosch. In the middle of my kitchen, please. And we'll just leave it there. We can all walk around it. We use it a little bit like a kitchen island.
Vic00:04:39I love that. I've always wanted one. I don't know. I had one. It's very exciting. Eat on top of the belt.
JVL00:04:44And so we're going to do that until the good people at Appliance Geek, who is my appliance repair service of choice, can come over on Monday, which is when they came over Monday night. Well, I was not home because I'm not going to be home. I'm not going to be home during this because I'm going to be off doing something else.
Vic00:05:02Oh, where are you going?
JVL00:05:03Going to see a baseball game.
Vic00:05:05Oh, nice. Yeah. Just you alone?
JVL00:05:07I have been invited by, I don't want to talk too much about this, but I've been invited by my hero, the guy who is my, legit, my biggest hero of all time.
Sonny00:05:22Allen Iverson? You're going to a baseball game with Allen Iverson?
JVL00:05:26Even bigger. Wow. You didn't tell me we're going to a baseball game. When I said yes to this invitation over email, my hero, this very kind gentleman, then said, oh, this will be great because my other guest is going to be a noted practitioner of the managerial arts. Oh, come on. Adam? Is it Adam?
Sonny00:05:46No, it's Cheddar.TV. What the fuck? I'm saying no. I'm just denying the call.
JVL00:05:50That's insane. I think Cheddar raised like $500 million in VC money. All right.
Guest00:05:58I'm not sitting down trying to. I'm just trying to be like, what's the next big thing, or how can I go viral? I'm just trying to have fun. What the fuck is this? This is like an ad.
JVL00:06:06Hello?
Guest00:06:06Hey, guys. This is Max at Cheddar.
Vic00:06:08How's it going?
JVL00:06:09Good. Awesome. How are you, Max? What's up, dude?
Vic00:06:12Doing well. I can hear you. I can't see you. Do you have your video enabled?
JVL00:06:16Yeah, I've got it. Can you see us?
Sonny00:06:19No, not yet. Try clearing your cache. Who are you, and why are you calling us in the middle of a podcast? Yeah, nothing's changing. Let me call you right back. Don't. Don't actually. Call us right back, Max. Do not call us right back.
JVL00:06:31We're waiting for you, dude.
Sonny00:06:33Do not call us right back. We're in the middle of something. Cheddar.
JVL00:06:38Cheddar is a big thing, man. Is there a connection to Cheddar and... Cheddar is... No, no. Cheddar is like this giant... It's like money for millennials. It's like, imagine CNBC for millennials, but all online.
Vic00:06:53I'm not kidding.
JVL00:06:54This is a real thing. This is a thing that is happening out there in the media.
Vic00:06:58Here's a question, JV. Do you think that he called the right number? Why didn't you guys play along with this? You got a show to do.
Sonny00:07:04Because I don't have time for Cheddar or its...
Vic00:07:07Do you think he called the right number? I don't know, and I don't care either.
Sonny00:07:19Hey, I was serious when I said don't call back.
JVL00:07:25So I guess we're cutting all that.
Sonny00:07:28Are we? F*** it. I...
Vic00:07:30JVL, you were talking about your baseball game, so you're going to take... Let's just move on. You're taking the day off, so I guess the two of you will not be men at work. Well played. How are you, Victorino? Oh, I might as well go to me, huh? I'll let Sonny collect his thoughts. Let him cool down. Sonny's really mad. He is, but it was annoying. That's annoying. Okay. As you know, getting ready for the cruise. I thought you left. I left yesterday.
JVL00:08:00Well, that's true. If you're listening to it now, I'm actually... You're Skyping in from the... I'm actually... You're Skyping in from... From the ship. From the team.
Vic00:08:09From cast.
JVL00:08:10Disney team?
Vic00:08:11Yes. Currently, as you're listening to this, I'm actually, not only am I on the cruise, I'm currently under custody of Bahamian authorities. For what? I have no idea, but I'm there, having a great time. The fastest Wi-Fi signal is in the teen club. Thank you. There's... By the way... I was looking for Liv and Maddie. Oh, my gosh. I just want to say... I also got lots of help from listener Lara Mason, who is a Substandard fan and listens to shows and is just telling me stuff to do on the Disney cruise. Ooh. Get those reusable souvenir mugs so you can, you know, use them and... For soda? For soda. Lots of soda. Unlimited. Sonny would love this. But I'll tell you what... I do love unlimited soda. Unlimited soda. I'm not doing... I don't know if they have this there, but I'm not doing the drink package. Every cruise ship has a drink. Like Carnival or Carnivore, as they call it. You know, that's one of their big sells. You don't see this, like, at Holland America when we do the standard. They don't talk about it that much, but Carnival, that's the big sell that they're trying to get you. Like, buy the drink package, unlimited, whatever, and then just drink away. But it's a hefty price, so it forces you to drink even more. But I'm not going to do that. So, wait. A question.
Sonny00:09:17This is like an all-inclusive type package that they...
Vic00:09:21Lots of cruise ships do that. Right, right, right. For drinking.
Sonny00:09:24So, but it's only for drinking? Yes. It's not for food? That's already paid for. Food is included. Food is included. It's included with the price, yes. But not beverage.
JVL00:09:31And ice, tea, and water are included in the price. That's right. But not like soda. But not sodas or... Alcohol. Alcohol. And you can choose either an alcohol plus soda package, alcohol only, or soda only.
Sonny00:09:44I'm impressed. Can I ask what these packages cost? Like, what is the actual cost? It varies cruise line to cruise line.
JVL00:09:51Yeah. I want to say the soda package is typically like 50 bucks for a week. And the alcohol, I don't even remember. Yeah.
Vic00:09:58What you do, what you notice on the ship is... Because everybody's drinking iced tea, is what you see, because nobody wants to pay
JVL00:10:02for the soda package.
Vic00:10:04The drinks thing is more interesting, but again, we were not on that kind of a cruise ship. You know, ours was with, you know, older folks, so that's not really a concern.
JVL00:10:12So what are you looking forward to most? What is the big attraction on your ship that you're on right now?
Vic00:10:18For me, personally, all that I'm on right now, breakfast buffet, I think is great. And making full use of a gym. Almost never... One of the great pluses, and this is true, actually, when we did the standard cruises, one of the best pluses... One of the best pluses is the gym, because nobody goes to it. Few people. This could be different with a lot of parents, I don't know, but few people actually make use of the gym on cruise ships, either because they're there for the food, they're getting big, or they're too old to use the gym. And so I'm looking forward to, my plan is gym in the morning, and then big breakfast. I'll tell you about my gym experience on the cruise later on. That's my experience. And bar. Obviously bar.
JVL00:10:54How is... I assume you've planned this out. How is the RG Diet? How is the RG Diet going to work with being on a cruise ship? Because these seem to be like an irresistible force and an immovable object here.
Vic00:11:06I'm just going to tell myself, I'm going to tell myself in my brain, am I deriving any more pleasure from eating this thing that's in my mouth? And if the answer is no, then I'll stop eating. I think that's how it's going to work. I don't know.
Sonny00:11:17How is that reduced gluttony? That's just the G. That's the definition of gluttony. That's the G diet.
Vic00:11:25I'm going to have to get back to you on that. One of the things to counter the gluttony is not just saying, oh, I shouldn't have that extra whatever it is, including ice cream, which, let's face it, I love ice cream, but there's a lot of carbs in there. Are there? Yeah, that's what they say. But I'm still on track to do the Castaway Key 5K with my sister. It's very non-competitive. If you end up having to wimp out and walk it at the end, you can do that. There are water stations, people on the island. The Disney Island? This is the Disney Island, and that is my plan. So you're going to run a 5K? What time are you shooting for? I don't know. So far, I've only been doing 2.2 miles. Okay. And the 5K is 3.1. 3.2. 3.2. Oh, no. 3.2. And according to Matt, my run, I'm averaging about 9.39.
Guest00:12:18That's pretty quick.
Vic00:12:19Is it? Okay, good. That is a brisk pace. Hill, too. It's very hilly, and this is not. That's brisk. You're going to be fine. We'll see what happens. It's going to be hot. We'll see. It's first thing in the morning. You're going to run sub 30. That would be exciting.
JVL00:12:29You will run sub 30.
Vic00:12:30I have been told by our colleague, Stephanie Merrick, who runs marathons from time to time, to start slow. Would you agree with that?
JVL00:12:38Yes, and especially because you will have to force yourself to start slow because the excitement of running in a big group of people just- Is that right? Pause you. My suggestion to you would be to start at the absolute back part of the pack, like start last. And this way, you will have people to pass. All along the way. It's a motivator, passing people. It's just fun. It's fun passing people, and you won't wind up getting passed as much, which can be a little bit demotivating. Yes.
Vic00:13:08That's a great tip.
Sonny00:13:08Yeah. Wait, so you're taking a cruise to go do a 5K?
Vic00:13:13Yes. I'm doing it. Is that basically what- I'm going to do it, yes. It's just, you know-
Sonny00:13:17And the 5K takes place on the boat?
Vic00:13:19No, no, on the island.
Sonny00:13:21What island? So you run through- What is this island? It's the Disney island.
JVL00:13:23The private island. All of these cruise lines have their own private island.
Vic00:13:26All in America has one. And so this is called Castaway Island. Castaway Key. The interesting thing about the island, it was, before it was acquired by Disney, it was a smuggling island.
JVL00:13:37Back in the days of pirates. That's what my wife said.
Vic00:13:39She goes, oh, you mean like pirates? I go, no, more like the 80s. More like the Crockett and Tubbs type smuggling. Right, Crockett and Tubbs. Smuggling. Okay, so that's what's coming up with me.
Sonny00:13:48So there are just caches of cocaine lying around this island. Because there's a runway.
Vic00:13:52Start digging. They have a runway. You know what I mean? The runway's still there. You know, it's like on the other side of the island was the runway for those Cessnas to fly and then you throw all the bags in the back. It's exciting stuff. Sonny, how are you now?
Sonny00:14:04I'm fine.
JVL00:14:06The cheddar thing really broke you, didn't it? It did. It threw you off.
Sonny00:14:09It's annoying and now I'm in a bad mood. I'm surprised you didn't want to play with them. I don't know if it was somebody who I knew. Like when our friend called accidentally, it's like, oh, this is a fun thing. But when they call, when it's some other organization that I've never heard of and is apparently a giant thing amongst millennials. I'll find the cheddar TV. And they don't, they, it just, it was very annoying. And when he called back.
Vic00:14:36That was annoying.
Sonny00:14:37After I very explicitly said don't call back.
JVL00:14:40This is it, man. Look, this is cheddar. What is that? That's not a thing. It is a live streaming money service for millennials.
Vic00:14:47I guarantee you what's going to happen, Sonny, is next week we're going to be at the office at the Beacon. Oh, by the way, we have these people we have to meet with from cheddar. It's going to be.
JVL00:14:55Oh, no. They're saying there's a big headline. Bitcoin plummets. Oh, no.
Sonny00:14:59No, not Bitcoin. No, okay. Not the Bitcoins. So otherwise. All of the Bitcoins in my pocket are smaller now.
JVL00:15:06Cheddar is a live streaming financial news network founded by John Steinberg in the United States. It broadcasts live daily from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. I wonder who this is.
Sonny00:15:17I just finished Bonfire of the Vanities this weekend. Hey. Who's the real hero of that movie? Sherman McCoy. Sherman McCoy is 100%. Well, either Sherman McCoy or the judge, Myron Kavitsky, the two heroes of that book. By far. I mean, it's fascinating. It is a fascinating look at the world, the embryonic stage of the world we have right now.
Vic00:15:39Yes, yes, yes. And that world that they live in no longer exists, per se. I guess you could say it's extinct. Speaking of which, over the weekend, Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom took the top spot at the box office with $60 million, followed by Incredibles 2 with $45.5 million, and in third place, Sicario. Day of Soldado, with $19 million. Do we have box office thoughts? It was a 60% drop, they said, for Jurassic. Yeah, but that sounds about right.
Sonny00:16:09I mean, that movie's going to be fine. It'll make a billion dollars. What was interesting was Sicario, Day of the Soldado, outperforming expectations by, like, a solid 50% or so. Is that right? I mean, it was projected to make $12 or $13 million, and it instead made almost $20. Yes. Which is a big number. And I'm kind of curious. I would be curious to know what the ethnic breakdown of the audiences was, because it was advertised in a way that suggests to me that they were trying to reach out specifically to Hispanic American audiences with the kind of posters with the, like, Dia de los Muertos skeletons draped with the American and the Mexican flags and the skeletons holding a gun.
Vic00:16:55I thought the skull also had tattoos made or something, so that's also that.
Sonny00:16:59It was very interesting, to me at least, as somebody who was kind of interested in the micro-targeting of these various groups. Whatever they did, it was a success, because the film outperformed expectations, and they made more money than they probably should have in their first weekend, which is going to be good for them, because the movie, I don't think, will hold very well. It only got a B from CinemaScore compared to the original, which got an A-.
JVL00:17:24The audiences were really unhappy, because it wasn't bleak enough.
Sonny00:17:26It wasn't nearly bleak enough. No, this is like a real thing. This is something we can get into when we do the review.
JVL00:17:30Audiences wanted to leave the theater, wanting to slit their wrists, and they only came out being mildly bummed out, and so they said, yeah, this didn't live up to expectations. Exactly.
Sonny00:17:39This is exactly how I feel, frankly. But I know you're doing schtick right now, but this is exactly how I feel.
Vic00:17:46Sonny, and you reviewed it for The Beacon. I did. What are your thoughts?
Sonny00:17:50Well, I'm an enormous fan of the first Sicario. I think it's one of the best movies of the last decade or so. A whole piece about it for Decider. People can go read that. Just Google Sonny Bunch Decider. It's somewhere in there. But I'm tremendously fond of it because it is kind of an expression of relatively pure nihilism, which is like it's not idealistic, really, in any sort of way. It's just like, here is the world that we have as we have it now. How do we try to regain control of it? And it is filled with these kind of pithy little... Not quite one-liners from Benicio Del Toro's character, but kind of pithy little maxims. At one point, the Emily Blunt character, who is essentially the audience surrogate and is just kind of along for the ride in the film, asks what she needs to know about the cartels. And Benicio Del Toro adjusts the cuff of his shirt and is like, you're asking how a watch works. Let's just keep an eye on the time for now. It's very smart. I don't know. It's smart. But it's clever, and it's amusing. And the movie is filled with lines like that, and that's one of the reasons why I love it. And directed by? And directed by Denis Villeneuve, who was... What was his last name? Denis Villeneuve.
JVL00:19:11Thank you. I would pay money to hear you say his name over and over again. I love it. Denis Villeneuve.
Vic00:19:16That would be a nice ringtone. Go ahead.
Sonny00:19:19It was directed by Mr. Villeneuve, who is, of course, one of our most interesting mainstream filmmakers right now. And this was kind of... I wouldn't... I wouldn't say it's before people knew who he was, because he had been... Like, Incendies was nominated for a foreign language Oscar, and the year before Sicario came out. Prisoners came out, which was, like, a modest success. It did well. But I think Sicario was the first movie that really kind of put him on the map for most people. And it's bleak. It is, as JBL says, bleak. It's a bleak movie. The first one. The first one. Bleak opening. It's a bleak opening. It opens with a stash house filled with corpses. It ends... It ends with the character who we kind of most enjoy seeing in action, Alejandro, murdering a family. Granted, it's the family of a drug lord, but still, it's, you know... It's a tough scene. And it ends with the main character telling... It ends with Alejandro telling the audience surrogate, Go away. Leave this town. This is a land of wolves now. You are not a wolf. This is the world in which we live, and you are not equipped to deal with it. And frankly, that's true for most of us. And that's, you know... So anyway, the sequel is not great. It is a bit of a mess. It has a core nugget of a good idea, which we get in the opening moments. The cartels are making most of their money now from human trafficking, or at least a large portion of their money. The most profitable portion of their empire is human trafficking. And they have begun trafficking Muslim terrorists into the country. The movie opens with a suicide bombing in the desert. One Muslim terrorist gets caught and he blows himself up rather than be captured. And then we cut from there to a quartet of bombers taking out a grocery store in the Midwest in Kansas City. And the government says, we're taking the gloves off. No rules this time, as opposed to the first movie where there were so many rules about, you know, engagement. So many rules. No rules this time. And they send Josh Brolin's character into... Basically, get the cartels to go to war with each other so they can't focus on their business of shipping Muslim terrorists into the country.
JVL00:21:36This is the idea. Isn't this a plot of Clear and Present Danger?
Sonny00:21:39Kind of, sort of. But no, but Clear and Present Danger was more about just, like, going in and blowing up all the drug houses.
JVL00:21:46But literally, it becomes, we have to take the gloves off because they've killed a president's financial contributor. Yeah, right. And their plan then is to go in and turn the cartels against each other.
Vic00:21:55And they do fight with each other in the end there. Right.
Sonny00:21:57Was it specifically? Was it specifically about getting the cartels to fight with each other in Clear and Present Danger?
JVL00:22:01I thought, was that, is that?
Sonny00:22:03Well, I thought that they were just trying to use that as cover. Like, they were going in and blowing it up and, like, making it look like they were. And that was the idea. The idea was to get.
JVL00:22:10I can't remember. It doesn't matter. It could be that all cartel movies, ultimately, the plan is to. To get the cartels to turn against each other. That should be the plan. That should be the plan.
Sonny00:22:17But there's, something went wrong with this movie. Something went terribly, horribly wrong with this movie because all of that driving action gets dismissed with one line of dialogue toward the end of the movie. And, it instead becomes about how Alejandro, the Benicio Del Toro's character, how Alejandro is basically a Terminator-style action hero who can get shot in the face and survive. And, like, and this is, this is, this is a real problem with the film. The, the, in the original film, it has these horribly tense sections of the movie where you have a very real sense that anyone could die at any moment. You, you, you, you know, the, the way the, the, everything is framed and the way it's framed. The way it's shot and the kind of propulsive beats of the music, it feels very, very tense. And, you have that same kind of feeling, kind of, in this movie. You have that same kind of feeling where, you know, Benicio Del Toro's character or Josh Brolin's character could get taken out at any time. They've kidnapped this little girl who's one of the, the daughters of the cartel chief and, you know, maybe she's going to die. And, and there's a great sequence. There is, there is actually a great sequence where, where Benicio Del Toro's character. Where Benicio Del Toro's character is trying to sneak back into the country. He's trying to be ferried in one of these human smuggling operations. And, the, the Mexicans figure out who he is and they decide to kill him. And, they shoot him in the desert. They shoot him right in the, right in the head. And, like 20 minutes later, he comes back to life. He's like, oh. Because he got shot through the cheeks.
JVL00:23:47It was a Steve Buscemi Fargo moment. Yeah.
Vic00:23:49It happens. It's the worst.
JVL00:23:50Or, do you mean a Russell Crowe, LA Confidential moment?
Sonny00:23:54Oh, another one.
JVL00:23:55Yes.
Sonny00:23:55But, it, it just cheapens the whole thing. And, it. And, I was, I was more or less with the movie. Even though, again, they, they're kind of undercutting everything from the first film in this movie. You know, the, the, the Benicio Del Toro spends a large portion of the movie trying to save the life of the daughter of the cartel boss who ordered his family murdered. Right. He literally ends the first film by shooting kids in the face. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's trying to get revenge on all of these people. So, something happened in script rewrites or something where they, they basically took the, the, the second and third act of this movie and they decided to make it, okay, we need, we need an action franchise where Benicio Del Toro is just kicking butt and he's actually kind of a good guy. You know, he's like, he's not that, he's not super nihilistic and he's not, he's gonna be, he's gonna save this little girl and everyone's gonna be happy and like, that's not what the first movie is about. And, this movie, I, I don't like to say that a sequel can ruin the first movie in a series. Mm-hmm. Because I don't think that's true. The first movie will always be there. Sicario, I can always go back and watch Sicario whenever I want. But it really does kind of undercut the, the, the character, the, the world that they built, the characters that they made. He should have just died, also. If, if, if, if Benicio Del Toro's character had died in the desert, like a dog, being shot down by these, you know, I think the movie would have been 100% better.
Vic00:25:18Instead of appearing later in the film, it doesn't even look like he has a scar on his face. I assume it's perhaps years later, I don't know, because-
Sonny00:25:26Well, it's one year later. It says there's a title card that says one year later.
Vic00:25:29That, and I saw the kid is totally tatted up, so I figured that happened. Who is the director?
Sonny00:25:34The director, um, his name is Salimo or something like that. It is not Denis Villeneuve. No, no, no.
JVL00:25:40It's not Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve. Villeneuve. Is it Villeneuve? You're now dropping whole letters. It's now two syllables.
Sonny00:25:45It's, it's, it's, his name is Salimo or something like that. He's an Italian, he's an Italian director who is the showrunner of Gamora, which is like-
Vic00:25:59Like, um, Italian- Italian mafia show. Yeah, right, right, right. Um, they always, but they did use a lot of military hard power in, in, in the sequel, I thought. Well, this is- And they had the bases.
Sonny00:26:11Well, this is something that, this is another thing that doesn't actually make any sense about the movie. There's a whole scene, uh, where, where, uh, Josh Brolin's character goes to meet with a guy who's played by Shea Whigham, who's one of my favorites. He was, he's from, uh, Boardwalk Empire. Okay. And he was on, he was in Wolf of Wall Street. He's been in a bunch of movies. Mm-hmm. Um, and- And TV shows. I love him. I love Shea Whigham. But he is like, he, he goes to this guy and he's like, I need you to, I need you to- I need to give you money and then you will set me up with a private army. Yes. You can give me like, we'll get, we'll get Black Hawk helicopters, we'll get drones with attack capabilities, and I need the gear to set up my, my Delta team. And he's like, okay, this is going to cost you $10 million a month. And he's like, deal. Right. This is coming from the American government, but we need plausible deniability. And then all of the action is set out of an, uh, army base. Yes. Or an air force base. Yes, so they clearly- It's, all of the action is set on, on U.S. soil from a U.S. military base. What, what, what, why didn't they just use the, the American gear? I don't understand.
Vic00:27:07The hardware, I don't know. I mean, and they had, so I mean, they were using the drones and GPS tracking was very important. Obviously the technology is important. I assume the military had their own virtual private network, but so should we, right JVL?
JVL00:27:20With all this news lately about data hacks and breaches, it's hard for me not to worry about my digital privacy. I, you know, I don't know. Again, I don't want to read the actual thing because the truth is, here's the spot. There's the sponsor is ExpressVPN. It is a virtual private network and we love all our sponsors equally on this show, but ExpressVPN is actually a really awesome product. And I have been, this is, I feel like this is my, you should go get a colonoscopy speech because like people like, look, setting up a VPN is kind of a pain in the ass. If you try to do it yourself, you have to like find a spare computer. Or set it up in your basement next to your wireless router. You've got to pay attention. It's going to be running all the time, 24/7. Is it doable? Yes. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. Uh, I delayed setting up a VPN for years, years because it's such a pain in the neck. And the truth is everybody who ever works from a public wifi network, if you are working at a library or at a Starbucks, or even at your office, if you don't trust your office, uh, dev team security. Um, you should have a VPN. You should use it. It encrypts all of the data. This way you can actually like do your banking over a public wifi. If you have a VPN without worrying about people hacking into your stuff and snooping on you, um, and express VPN is the answer to all of this. It is literally a one button push installing. It takes about five seconds. You click a link, you download, you hit the install button, and then, uh, it literally sets like a giant power button on your computer screen, you say, do you want to set up your VPN and you press it and it says, great, you've got a VPN. You're secure. Now that's it. That is the sum total of it. It winds up being less than seven bucks a month. Uh, this is something that everybody who has a laptop should do. If you ever work and carry your laptop around and do it from places that aren't in your home network at home, you should do it. Uh, if you're a crazy person who worries about your, your ISP, uh, snooping on you, like if you worry about Comcast looking at, uh, like, I don't know what actress is your IMD being or something while, while the Disney channels on in the background, then you should also have express VPN, um, just do it, just do it. Everybody should have express VPN. It is a really great product. It works seamlessly. Uh, it does not slow down your internet connection speed at all. It's just awesome. Um, and we're actually super happy to have them as a sponsor and I actually now can't imagine living without it. It's really good. Wow. So, uh, take. Back your internet privacy today and find out how you can get three months free, which is again, it's like 20 bucks value. You should do this, uh, go to expressvpn.com/substandard. That's I don't know why they want me to spell it out, but I'll do it. E X P R E S S V P N.com/substandard. You get three months free with a one year package. Uh, this is a really great company. It's a really good product. Uh, I, I use it for real and once they stop sponsoring. Yes, I will still pay for it and still use it for real. It's really good. Uh, don't put it off. Uh, it's the type of just sort of digital hygiene that everybody should practice. And it's a pain in the neck to do it on your own. So don't do it on your own. Just have them do it for you. And it's good. Uh, expressvpn.com/substandard.
Vic00:30:44Thank you, JVL. That's the most impassioned ad read I've ever heard. It's a really good product and they let us use it.
JVL00:30:50And when we can use good products, I think we try to move them. That's what I try to do.
Vic00:30:54I got, I got a little worried when you said that. When you said digital hygiene. Oh, hey, um, you don't even know what to say about that. Yes.
Guest00:31:02Uh, Oh, I get it.
Vic00:31:05The other digital hygiene. Uh, that's important too. Um, I thought this, uh, movie Sonny, um, it's funny. It opens. Did you see it, Vic? I did. I want to see anyone else say about it. Uh, I thought it was extremely timely in the, it takes the, the, the bulk of this movie takes place on the Mexico. Texas border and it involves trafficking. I thought if the president saw the first 15 minutes or 20 seconds, it would be like,
Sonny00:31:31holy, you know, part of me, part of me almost wonders if they got cold feet about, uh, about the kind of timeliness of it, because there's, again, like I said, there's, there's a line, there's literally one line towards the end of the film. Uh, where some helper woman who was working for the, for the federal government says, like, but they weren't even trapped, they weren't even trafficked here. They were American born terrorists. Right. In the Kansas. Catherine Keener says that. And it's just like, okay, well. From New Jersey. Right, right. And then, and so like, and so, and then the, the, the whole movie kind of has gone off the rails already at this point, but it is, it is clear that at some point in the script writing process, Taylor Sheridan, who wrote this movie and who wrote the original was given the note that this is not actually, we're not actually going to make a movie about terrorists being transported into, into America. We're not going to make a movie about Alejandro going to war with the cartels. We want something else. And the thing, the, the, the Frankenstein monster that they've created is just a, it just doesn't work. Right. Really on any, on any level.
Vic00:32:41Right. The suicide bomber in the beginning and the, and in the, in the, in the supermarket thing, that's a total MacGuffin. I mean, we just never go back to that. And, and again, as soon as I heard Catherine Keener mentioned that the terrorists were from New Jersey, I'm like, well, this whole thing is completely. But I think that's a great observation that, that it might have originally been, you know, terrorists coming through the Mexican border and they can't do that. I'm sorry. From PC standpoint, isn't that worse?
JVL00:33:08No. The idea is like, oh, they're homegrown. Like you can't trust any people of the Islamic faith through, from, from, I mean, isn't it actually better to be like, you know, look, American citizens are peaceful and no? No.
Sonny00:33:20I was all just kind of, not, not, not in our current moment, not, not in the last. So five years ago, that would have been worse.
JVL00:33:27Much worse. Probably.
Vic00:33:29Everything is shifting, isn't it? It does. It does. And by the way, when I saw Matthew Modine, you immediately, there's never a thought that crosses my mind. Oh, he might be a good secretary of defense. Yeah. He might be a nice guy.
Sonny00:33:40Right. Well, I mean, he's not like, it's, it's a weird character again. Like they don't, they don't quite know what to do with him because he, like he starts off the movie being kind of hard nosed and bad assed and then he's like a squish at the end and like once they need him to change. Right. I mean, Yeah. It just is such, maybe, maybe there's a deeper lesson here about the inability of the American government to stick with any program for any length of time that political pressures get to you and both. But like, I just think that there's the, the, I think the expediency that they were looking for was one that had to do with the, with, with turning Alejandro into something that he shouldn't be. Right. Which is basically an action hero.
Vic00:34:18I think it was around, I mean, sort of when it starts, the first 20, 30 minutes, I was, I had very low expectations going in because I know he's a great actor. I know, I knew you didn't like it. And, and so I was not expecting much. But then I got, kind of got sucked into it. Like, oh, this is really interesting. And then it just loses you.
Sonny00:34:33Basically, I, I, I actually really enjoy essentially everything that happens up until Alejandro goes off to chase the little girl into the desert. That's an interesting point. Like everything, everything up to there, I think more or less works. And then after that, the movie just veers off in the wrong direction. Totally in the wrong direction.
Vic00:34:52Right. Right. By the way, I was thinking. I was thinking it's a very busy summer for both Josh Brolin and Catherine Keener, because they both, they're both in this movie together. And they were both voices in different movies. Of course, Brolin was the voice of Thanos.
JVL00:35:09Two. Two? He's in Deadpool 2. He's also in Deadpool 2. So this is his third blockbuster of the summer.
Vic00:35:18And then Catherine Keener was the voice in Incredibles 2. Yeah. But, yeah, the people keep busy about this. Do you have other? Oh, you know what else I thought, by the way? After watching it and being like, and at the end of the movie, people seem to be sort of like, let's just, people just leave. You know, this is kind of a depressed vibe, as you were noting. I thought, I said, you know, this could be. But not depressed because the movie is bleak. No, depressed because it's disappointing.
Sonny00:35:43The movie has, like, this weirdly happy ending where Alejandro comes back to life and Josh Brolin's character's like, we're not executing this drug cartel girl. We're going to put her in the witness protection program. And he, like, takes her to safety. It's like, it's this weirdly saccharine nonsense ending.
Vic00:36:02And Benicio Del Toro gives the little pep talk to the kid, the boy.
Sonny00:36:06Yeah. So you want, well, that's the worst line in the whole movie. It kind of encapsulates everything that's wrong with this film. The last shot of the movie is the kid who shot Benicio Del Toro in the face. He goes to, like, his handler for his next assignment. And in the handler's room is Benicio Del Toro, who's wearing a suit, and he's all, he's looking, he looks good and healthy. And he says to the kid, so you, it's something like, so you want to be a Sicario. Yeah. Or so you want to learn how to be a Sicario, or something like that. And the line itself is bad, because why is he switching between languages? Why wouldn't he just say, so you want to be a hitman? Or why wouldn't he say the whole thing in Spanish? Blah, blah, blah, blah, Sicario. You know, like, why are they switching the language? It's like, it encapsulates everything that's wrong with this. And they needed that, because they needed to, A, have the title of the movie in the last line, for whatever reason, because they've created the Sicario expanded universe. And, and two, they needed it because they, they wanted to have something that audiences could just understand, because they, they don't want to be, oh, God forbid, they have to read anything on the screen, so you want to be a Sicario.
JVL00:37:16Question. Yeah. Please arrange the following movies from bleak to bleakest.
Sonny00:37:21Okay.
JVL00:37:24Traffic. Mm-hmm. The Counselor and Sicario.
Sonny00:37:29From bleak? From bleak to bleakest. To bleakest? From, uh, so least bleak is Traffic, second least bleak is Sicario, bleakest is The Counselor. Okay, so The Counselor is even more. The Counselor is the bleakest movie I've ever seen. It's amazing.
JVL00:37:43It's awfully bleak.
Sonny00:37:44I love it.
JVL00:37:44Victorino, do you concur?
Vic00:37:45I love every second of that movie. I would put at the very top, uh, Gone Baby Gone. Oh! That was, because you know what's gonna, they made, he made a pad choice. He should, the kid should have been happily living with Morgan Freeman, and he does technically what's right, but you know in the end, this little girl's a lost cause. Plus, you know, anything involving harm to children, they had some, oh, that was just bleak! And it still haunts me. I wish I didn't see that movie, believe it or not.
JVL00:38:10So, question. I have an aversion to bleak movies. I've just, I used to love them back when I was a young man and a little more angry. Uh, now I just don't, I don't consume enough media to be able to, like, wash the feeling of a bleakness away.
Vic00:38:25When you have kids, too, it's a big thing.
JVL00:38:28Could I watch Sicario on my phone at the gym, and would that radically diminish the power of the bleakness? This is a, and this is a serious question. So, if you take a movie like Sicario, which is an incredible, which, if you watch it alone on a large screen in the dark, I assume makes you want to, like, slit your wrists. But if all of a sudden you're, like, in the gym and it's on a screen that's four inches big in front of you while you're running, like, all of a sudden, is it, like, managed
Sonny00:38:54well, you just, you just lose, you just lose, I mean, I don't know exactly how to answer that, but I do think you lose a lot of the artistry of the film, which is, you know, Roger Deakins was a cinematographer, he's got these great stark backgrounds.
JVL00:39:09He didn't mean for me to watch it on my phone?
Sonny00:39:11He did not mean for you to watch it in portrait mode on your, on your...
JVL00:39:15What if I watch it in landscape?
Sonny00:39:16I don't think that works, either, frankly. I'm gonna have David Lynch have a talk with you.
JVL00:39:22Question. Yeah. Why do you say that a sequel can't ruin the original movies? Have you watched The Matrix in the last ten years?
Sonny00:39:31Well, we're gonna get to this.
Vic00:39:33Yeah. We're gonna get to this in a minute. Yeah, no, we can get to it soon.
Sonny00:39:35But I, I still contend that The Matrix Reloaded is a, is a very good film, and... Revolutions? Revolutions doesn't quite work for me, but it does nothing to diminish either of the first two films.
JVL00:39:47Interesting. Mm-hmm. Do you have...
Sonny00:39:48But I, do you, I mean, like, do you think it, you think it actually ruins the, I know you were, you were very, very down on The Matrix Reloaded. The Matrix Revolutions, when it came out.
JVL00:39:56I would argue, for me, uh, there are certain sequels that, so some sequels don't, like The Sting 2 is a horrible, horrible sequel that does not actually ruin The Sting. Like, it is, you know, it is what it is. Uh, The Two Jakes does not ruin Chinatown. Mm-hmm. The Two Jakes is not a very good movie. It's a terrible movie. Even though it has a great line. One of my favorite lines in all of cinema.
Vic00:40:22Remind me.
JVL00:40:23In this town. I'm the leper with the most fingers. Oh, okay. That's a good line. Yeah, that's a good line. Uh, however, when you have, uh, the problem with The Matrix is that the first act, the original movie, is itself a promise. It is not, it is both a standalone movie, but also a promise about a universe. Mm-hmm. And when the sequels break the promise about the universe. Yes. That has the power to diminish the first act in the, in the series.
Sonny00:40:54My, my two cents on this is, I don't, I don't think that, again, I don't think Revolutions was very good, but I thought it was totally acceptable within the universe that they had built. It didn't, it didn't strike me as, like, cheap in a way that some of these movies sometimes can be.
JVL00:41:11The rave scene and all that. That's reloaded, though.
Sonny00:41:15That's even in, that's in Reloaded.
JVL00:41:17Revolutions blows up almost all of the, almost all of the ideas from the beginning.
Sonny00:41:23Well, your, your, your problem with Revolutions. Your problem with Revolutions is that, if I remember correctly, if I remember the piece that you wrote, it was, it had to do with Agent Smith kind of no longer having to obey the rules of the universe, and he became essentially a second Neo. Right. That never bothered me that much, frankly.
JVL00:41:38Yeah, it bothered, bothered me a lot. But I don't know. I mean, look, I'm not saying that.
Sonny00:41:41As somebody who doesn't care for math or science, none of this bothered me.
JVL00:41:44What I'm arguing is that some sequels, some sequels don't destroy or, or lessen the impact, but, but some sequels do. Right. Do you, do you disagree with this? Yes.
Vic00:41:53No, no, no. I think it depends on if it alters the universe retroactively so that, you know, after there could be a sequel that says everything in the last movie you saw, which was a fun movie and everybody liked, is wrong. Right. It was just a dream or it was a lie or something, something. Yeah. Then it totally destroys it. And then you can't.
Sonny00:42:10So The Last Jedi.
Vic00:42:11Yeah. Kind of. That's exactly, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Because if you go back, then you can't think to yourself, oh, this is, okay, you know at
JVL00:42:17the end, actually what I'm seeing is all a lie. Don't forget, people talk themselves into believing for about two weeks that Revolutions was a great movie. I don't know if you remember this. I don't remember. Not a lot of people, but there was a contingent of people who made the case. Revolutions is great.
Vic00:42:33You and your writing about it at the time convinced me not to see the movie. I remember that. You described the switchblades and things. Is that the Reloaded or is that Reloaded? That's Reloaded.
JVL00:42:42Reloaded is not, Reloaded is, again, an interesting movie. However, it depends, its success or failure depends upon the completion of the story that you have been promised, and the completion of the story is so bad that it invalidates to an even larger degree than it does the original Matrix.
Sonny00:42:57The problem with denigrating Reloaded, which I can accept, I know people don't love it, but Reloaded has an hour-long action sequence, which is one of the greatest things ever put to film. Don't disagree. I mean, so even if constituent parts of it don't work, and even if you're not a big fan of The Merovingian, I personally like him. I love him. He's the best part.
JVL00:43:21The Merovingian is the best part of that movie.
Sonny00:43:22Oh, yeah. I'm not saying you. I'm just saying. I know people really had an issue with, like, oh, this is dumb. It's all about choice and free will. Every movie's about choice. F off. This is still a fun sequence. The hour-long action sequence, or 45-minute or 50-minute, whatever it is, that basically
JVL00:43:38starts in the house of The Merovingian and then continues on to the freeway.
Sonny00:43:40That starts in the house of The Merovingian and goes through the freeway chase is perfect action cinema. It's just perfect. Agreed.
Vic00:43:50Everything about it is great. Agreed. Okay. Did you have any other sequel thoughts? I made a mini-rank. I feel like we've had this episode before, but I did another ranking anyway of my least
JVL00:44:00favorite sequels. I have some sequels on, but do we need to break here? No, no, no, no, no. I've got one later. No, no. I mean, I'm sorry. What I had was I had some rankings for us to do later when it comes to rankings of the sequels. Oh, that's fine. We can still do it all.
Sonny00:44:14We're running out of time. We're at 45 minutes, so we're-
JVL00:44:16Well, we're running out of time. We need to just wrap.
Sonny00:44:18Let's do some ranking. Let's do some rankings. We don't need to do the other thing yet, though?
Vic00:44:22No. No. I have- The ad transition is dependent on the end of the sequels.
JVL00:44:27Thank you.
Vic00:44:27Thank you for revealing what's behind the curtain. Okay, JVL, just trust me on this. I know I forgot once ever, but- I went out of my lane there. Please.
JVL00:44:39U.S. Marshall's not a very good sequel. What are we doing? 2010. Least favorite. Least favorite sequels. Least favorite sequels. Okay. I mean, there's a class of sequels which are- Okay. So, I'm going to- I understand why you have The Blair Witch 2, and the reason is because there's so much money on the table that you can't not do it, right?
Vic00:45:00There are sequels- It's all house money. It's all house money.
JVL00:45:03The Son of the Mask is a movie where there is so much money on the table that- because The Mask made a ton of money. Who was- instead of Jim Carrey, who was it?
Vic00:45:14God, I forget.
JVL00:45:14We don't even know, right? That's how bad it was.
Vic00:45:16Okay, don't worry about it.
JVL00:45:17So, I see those sorts of things I understand, and I actually don't even think they're worth a whole lot of scorn. This is just like- Sometimes the cinema is just a matter of economics. Staying Alive probably counts as that, right? Wow, yes. Yeah, yeah. U.S. Marshals does not, right? U.S. Marshals is a creative endeavor.
Vic00:45:37Wesley Snipes is the- he's replacing Harrison Ford as the innocent man.
JVL00:45:43And it is- A really hot wife. A really hot wife. The Fugitive made a lot of money, but not crazy money. It did not demand a sequel, and that sequel was just- People conceived. The idea was people really loved the Tommy Lee Jones character- And Joey Pants. So we're going to make him the lead.
Sonny00:46:01And it's- that's a bad movie. Bad movie. Robert Downey Jr.'s in that, right?
JVL00:46:05Yes, he is in that. He's like- He kills the Judge Reinhold lookalike, who's not Judge Reinhold. The guy who likes to drink milk. Go ahead. The guy who looks a lot like Judge Reinhold. Caddyshack 2. It's on my list.
Sonny00:46:18Can we- in this vein, can we- so there- I have a hard time- I have a hard time getting upset about franchise sequels, right? So, like, Transformers 2 is an unnecessary sequel insofar as it does- It's bad. It is what it is. But if there wasn't- but it is actually a necessary sequel, because the whole point of a franchise is to create sequels. To create sequels, yes. It is a necessary sequel. No.
JVL00:46:41For the most part, I would say the unnecessary bad disaster sequels are in movies where there are only two of them. Right? So, like, Blues Brothers 2000. Yeah. There's no reason to do- so you can't- Well, there's-
Sonny00:46:53There were two- there were two Dumb and Dumber sequels. There were a second? There was- so there was a Dumb and Dumber sequel and a Dumb and Dumber prequel.
Guest00:46:59Oh, that's right.
Sonny00:47:00I remember. I forgot about that. This violates that rule, because both of those movies are- Those are very, very bad. Very, very bad movies. But I- so- but I wanted to make a list of unnecessary sequels that were actually good, that I enjoy. Okay, all right. Okay? Yeah.
Vic00:47:15Are you done, JVL, or did you-
JVL00:47:17Yeah, I'm-
Sonny00:47:18S. Darko. I don't- I was looking- I was researching for this episode. I didn't even know this was a sequel. That was a thing. I didn't even know either. Totally missed it. I had no idea. Did you actually see- have you seen that? It's a thing, no.
JVL00:47:28JVL, have you seen it? I have not. Okay. Funny.
Sonny00:47:32Anything else?
JVL00:47:33Basic- do you really remember? There was a second Basic Instinct. Basic Instinct. Remember? And a second Wall Street. In like- Money Never Sleeps.
Sonny00:47:38In like back-to-back years, I think. It was like one right after the other, there was Basic Instinct 2 and Wall Street 2, and I was like, did we re- this is like a weird nostalgia moment.
JVL00:47:46It was a very, very strange, and those things brought back like real actors who didn't need the money. This is why- those are the types of ill-considered sequels that I find a little bit mystifying. In which, almost, I want to give them a pass by saying, maybe this was just an artistic endeavor that didn't work out. Yeah. Like maybe they're actually, you know, at one point in time, there was something that worked here, and the idea just got lost in the execution.
Vic00:48:11Since Sonny is going to talk about uplifting sequels, I'm going to talk- let me just get through my list of sequels I did not like. It's not a list, it's a ranking. It's a ranking. It's a ranking from least worst to worst worst, right? So least worst is The Two Jakes. I went to see it in the theater. I think I mentioned this before. I just didn't understand what's happening. It didn't help that- You were six. I didn't see Chinatown either, so it didn't help. I'm like, the entire movie, I'm like, what is going on? How old were you if you saw that in the theaters? High school.
Guest00:48:33High school. High school.
Vic00:48:34Okay. Number three, to be completely honest, and we talked about franchises, that's just what they are, but I'll go out on a limb here. Police Academy 5. Not necessary. Why? Because they did not have Steve Guttenberg. Guttenberg. Ooh. Who replaced him? A guy named Matt McCoy, who's just this standard pretty face. He's unmistakable. When you see him, you'll be like, oh, that guy. Do they still have the guy who makes all the sounds of this movie? Oh, of course.
Guest00:48:57He's not going anywhere.
Vic00:48:58And Hightower? Oh, yeah. And everybody else was still there. Everybody else was there. Yeah, the one with the, you know, everybody. Everybody's there. Michael Winslow. Yes, Michael Winslow. And Tackleberry. Tackleberry. Tackleberry, that's right. Who's the guy with the guns? He was the guy with the guns. Okay. Number two, Cannonball Run 2 was very disappointing. In the end, you could tell, I mean, there was a scene with Frank Sinatra in the boardroom, and you could tell they just edited it where Frank was clearly not in the same room as him, and they just had him recorded. And knowing Frank Sinatra, they probably just did one take. And they also, at the end, had a montage to speed up the process of the race, because they were way behind, because of this sort of mafia subplot, and that they had it to music from Menudo, if you remember. Menudo, yes. So that was bad. And number one is one that you already mentioned, JVL, which is Caddyshack 2, because you cannot replace, I'm sorry, you cannot replace Roddy Dangerfield with Jackie Mason. Jackie Mason, right. You cannot replace Bill. You cannot replace Bill Murray with Dan Aykroyd, in that role.
JVL00:49:55I love Dan Aykroyd, but. The Bill Murray, Bill Murray is Caddyshack, to a large degree. Yeah, that's right. You have to have him. Son of the Mask, by the way, Jamie Kennedy.
Guest00:50:03Oh. Jamie Kennedy, that's right.
JVL00:50:05That's right. Okay. That's a thing that never happened. Ugh, Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:50:09All right, here is my ranking of unnecessary sequels that I actually enjoyed, or slash are good. I mean, there's kind of some, those are not necessarily the same thing. Number one, The Godfather Part 2. Oh. The Godfather. The Godfather Part 2 is an entirely unnecessary sequel. There's nothing, there's nothing more to tell on that story. Slash prequel. It is, it is, The Godfather worked perfectly as a standalone movie. Subcontained, yeah. Was not intended as part of a franchise, but then, the movie made a ton of money. They, they needed to get a sequel out there, and arguably is better than the original. So, that would be my number one. That's a good, that's a good one. The Matrix Reloaded, which as we've discussed, I think is, I think is actually very good. I think it's a very.
JVL00:50:50I'm sorry, are you going. I'm going best. Down, or best from top to bottom here? From top to bottom. Okay.
Sonny00:50:56Number three, Rocky 2, 3, 4, Balboa, and then Creed.
Vic00:51:03And then Creed.
Sonny00:51:04Question. Yes.
JVL00:51:07Within this subcategory. Mm-hmm. Of Rocky movies. Please to be ranking.
Sonny00:51:13Of good, the sub rank, the subcategory of good Rocky sequels would probably look something like, from. Best to worst. Mm-hmm.
JVL00:51:26Be very careful with your first pick here.
Sonny00:51:28Four. Correct. Two. No. No. Creed, Balboa, three.
Vic00:51:34Please, Vic, could you give the correct ranking of the sub Rockies? Well, I would just switch the top. It would be four and then three. Yes. My prediction. Clubber Lang. My prediction, pain.
Sonny00:51:44Nonsense.
JVL00:51:44Plus the Fabulous Thunderlips.
Sonny00:51:46Yes, both. I almost left three off this list entirely. How could you do that?
JVL00:51:49Three is really good.
Vic00:51:50Clubber Lang is one of the great.
JVL00:51:52Clubber Lang. It's fantastic. Number four. Number four. Clubber Lang isn't even a villain. Like, you're basically rooting for Clubber Lang.
Sonny00:51:58What? You're rooting for all the villains.
JVL00:52:00Pain. Not for Yvonne Drago. What am I, a commie? Yes. Yes. In some ways.
Sonny00:52:07Number four. I have this on here, and I don't necessarily think it's a good movie, but it's one I enjoy because I find it totally fascinating. Blair Witch 2, Book of Shadows, which I actually find, again, I don't think it's a good movie, but it is a fascinating look at the way that. A Hollywood studio would make a Blair Witch type movie. Like, Blair Witch is, like, creepy and, like, scary and good on its own because it's done on this shoestring budget with, like, amateur actors. And, like, Blair Witch 2 is, like, it's like somebody sat down in a studio and was like, okay, let's do that again, but let's do it our way. And it is such a fascinating disaster that it bears watching and, like, scrutiny to see what exactly was wrong. And I actually like 2010. I actually like 2010. I think it's a totally acceptable, good movie.
Vic00:52:55What, Space Odyssey? Yeah, the sequel to 2001. With Roy Scheider? Yeah. I saw that in the theater as well without having seen 2001 because I was a kid at the time. And you know what? I enjoyed it. Yeah. It was kind of glass-nosed-ish. It's a little anti-cold. It's not, I mean, yeah, it's a little, it's, yeah, it's like a, it's, it's, it's, like,
JVL00:53:11It's squish. It's squishy. It's squishy. It's squishy, but it does, but. Remind me what happens in the big bottle in that movie. It's not really a battle. 2010.
Sonny00:53:18Yeah, the big, with the laser ships where they go. Well, the Millennium Falcon comes in and blows it all up.
JVL00:53:25I, uh, I, I purchased the comic book adaptation of 2010. Wow. And that was so effing boring.
Vic00:53:34Yeah, yeah, well, like, like, what should, like, what should, the movie had, John Lithgow was in it, I believe, and Bob Balaban was, was in it.
JVL00:53:41And, of course, Bob Balaban is in 2010.
Sonny00:53:44He has to converse with Hal. He's the computer expert.
Vic00:53:46He has to convince Hal not to kill everybody again. Um, you know what I would have loved to see? I would have loved to see a sequel to that. A sequel to The Tuxedo with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jackie Chan, but instead of Jackie Chan, it would have been me. Anyway, speaking of tuxedos, wedding season is upon us. You're going to be doing it big and going out to all of your buddies' weddings. When you're bringing a date, you want to look fresh, but it has to be convenient. That's where TheBlackTux.com comes in. The Black Tux has awesome suits and tuxedos in all kinds of styles, and you rent them online. I tried the Wrigley suit, which fit like a T, but also former Free Beacon intern Graham Pirro and his buddies use The Black Tux for senior ball at Jiu Jitsu. Georgetown, they look great. I saw the pictures. The Black Tux offers the kinds of suits and tuxedo styles that would normally be wildly expensive to buy, and you might only wear it once, like the Emerald Shawl Tuxedo. It's funky, it's cool, but how many times are you going to wear an Emerald Green Tuxedo? With The Black Tux, you can do you and blow it out for your big one-time event. So try out a new look, do something different, and take your style to the next level with The Black Tux Free Home Try-On. You can see the fit and feel the quality of your style. You can also order your suit months before your event. After ordering, your suit will arrive 14 days before your event. If anything is less than perfect, The Black Tux will send you a replacement right away. And remember how simple returns are. Wear it, turn heads, then send it back three days after your event. Shipping is free both ways. Stand out at your event for the right reasons with The Black Tux. To get $20 off your purchase, visit theblacktux.com slash substandard. That's theblacktux.com slash substandard for $20. To get $20 off your purchase, The Black Tux premium and rental suits and tuxedos delivered. Corrections additions. I have an addition.
JVL00:55:35Yeah?
Vic00:55:36Our friend Adam White tells me after he heard the episode, he would have happily chimed in to talk about his Lowe's experience. Really? Yes. He had something being delivered. I forget what it was, but it came supposedly assembled and it fell apart. So he called and angrily demanded, that they take it back after being on the phone for 20 minutes. And then they promised to take it back on a certain day. They didn't. And then they finally came back three days later after he called and called and called again. And then when they said it was ready to be picked up, for the next delivery date, never happened again. He had enough. He drove to the Lowe's and went directly to meet with the manager. Say, I'm here actually. And where is it? And they had to look in the back and it took them 20 minutes to find it. And there it was with his. Name and address on it. But it was like, oh, there it is.
Guest00:56:25Yeah. Okay.
JVL00:56:26It's hard. You know, I had a little project that I had to do. We got a water table for the baby to go out on the deck. And so, to cut this down short, the water table really wants to have an electrical pump in it. But it was just built without one of those things. So what it wants, truly, is the design wants to have a pump pushing water to the top of the thing and then cascading out. But instead, it's like, you know, hey, you, the parent, can scoop little shovels and just pour it in for your kid over and over and over again. And so we decided to mod this out, the girls and I, for the benefit of the baby. And so I said, huh, should I go and spend my money at Lowe's? No, no, I didn't. I went to Home Depot, and I explained. You know, there's always the lady in the apron when you walk right in. She said, hey, can I help you with what you're looking for? And I explained to her that we were looking to, like, turbocharge the baby's water. And she was like, yeah, come with me. And she walked me to where the pumps were in that aisle. I picked out my pump, and then she walked me over to the plumbing aisle with the plastic tubing and showed me the tubing I would need, and that was that. What an amazing experience I had at the Home Depot. That sounds very stress-free.
Sonny00:57:42Not at Lowe's, the worst store.
JVL00:57:44Sonny, anything? You're good?
Sonny00:57:46No, I gotta tell you what, I gotta change a fill valve in a toilet. Can I just have JVL come over and do that? That would be handy with this sort of thing. You wanna come fix my toilet?
JVL00:57:56I haven't done full rebuilds, but I've done partial rebuilds.
Sonny00:57:59No, I just need to change the fill valve. It looks very easy, according to YouTube. It looks very simple. This is the flapper. Not the flapper, the other thing, the thing that actually hooks into the water source. Yeah, you can do that.
JVL00:58:10That's a pop-on, pop-off.
Sonny00:58:12It should be pretty easy, I think.
JVL00:58:14But you'll turn off the water first, right?
Vic00:58:16Yeah, well, obviously. I actually, you know, I didn't think I'd get into that, but I actually got into a little bit of toilet repair. I looked at the Kennedy Warren, of all places. I didn't feel like calling maintenance, and I just started understanding how it worked. Sort of monkeying around. Monkeying around. And my temporary fixes worked for a little bit. Anyway.
JVL00:58:33Well, that's where you always stash the drugs. That's right. Is in the tank of the toilet.
Vic00:58:36By the way, those Kennedy Warren toilets were fantastic.
JVL00:58:38Because the dogs can't smell them there.
Vic00:58:40That's right, that's right. Okay. That's where Karen Hill should have hidden it. Wasn't this a staple of 80s movies?
JVL00:58:45It's like the drugs are always in the tank of the toilet.
Vic00:58:48In the tank, in the tank, in a bag. Okay, that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments? Complaints, complaints, compliments. Tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. At JV Last. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard at a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
JVL00:59:15Are we even going to do a show next week? I'm happy to skip it. What is next week? It's Ant-Man. Ant-Man at the Lost.
Vic00:59:22Unless, of course, they might show that on the ship. It's a Disney ship. I don't know. Maybe they do. I have no idea.
JVL00:59:27Do you want to have a guest in? Do you want to just do it us? Well, I mean, if Vic can't do it. I mean, I'll physically be here.
Vic00:59:35Oh, you'll be back? It's a five-day cruise, so it's Wednesday to Sunday. He gets back on Sunday. Oh.
JVL00:59:39Well, we should just do it like normal next week.
Vic00:59:41We have to think way ahead until you're...
JVL00:59:43Yeah, until I go away. Okay. There's one other thing I wanted to talk about, though. Okay.
Vic00:59:51Go ahead. No, I just... You know, I... I had done some errands yesterday. Yeah, go ahead. No, no, no. No errands. No, no, no. I just came back to the house, and Kate was...
Sonny01:00:01You were doing errands on Wednesday while you were at the... Oh, yes, I'm sorry. While you were on the cruise?
Vic01:00:05Four days ago. Four days ago.
Sonny01:00:06You're doing errands on Wednesday, the 4th of July? Oh, my gosh. That doesn't sound right.
Vic01:00:10Oh, no, no, no, no. What am I talking about? And I had come back, and Kate was half awake, half napping, but the kids are all there on the couch, piled, and the TV's on. I said, what are you watching? I look in, and they were watching Dark Knight Rises. And he goes, it's on TV, he said. I go, let me guess what Marvel movie you're watching. He goes, no, no, no, it's on TV. And the next thing, you're on there, and it's like middle of the Sunday afternoon, all four of us all watching. It's a really good movie.
Guest01:00:35And it...
Vic01:00:37Yes. No, that's all I wanted to say. It's a really good movie. And then... Dark Knight Rises? Yeah. Dark Knight... Yeah, with Bane. Yeah. Yeah. Do we want to set up our outro music here? No, that's all I wanted to say. It was great, and hold on, and then I got them all to root against Justice League, because it was coming on next, and I told them... I told them how bad it was, so don't watch it, because it's not the same Batman.
Sonny01:00:55Wait, Justice League was coming on next? Yeah. On what channel? TNT. Not TNT. Batman, Superman, sorry.
Vic01:01:00Oh, okay. I was going to say. Yeah. Anyway.
JVL01:01:03Yeah. Do we want to set up the outro music, or no? Sure. How do we do that? I don't know. Did we do it last time, or no? You did. You did a nice little walk of it. No, I didn't.
Vic01:01:12It was you. Okay. Oh, okay.
JVL01:01:17Well... Wasn't it? Or was it... You know, we'll just cut all of this. I'll just go right to the outro music. All right, all right.
Vic01:01:22Our friend, we'll give a shout out to our friend Scotty Rock at Twitter, who put together that song for May, and now he's got a song for us for June. Enjoy.
Guest01:01:34Hey, June, you weren't so bad. You had a slow start, but things got better. Remember, that solo came out in May. And with Ocean's 8, things did get better. Hey, June, you love sequels, gender-swapped reboots, and broken records. Together, these two films saved a possible grave studios can't afford. And any time someone complains, hey, June, restrain, unwanted sequels still have their place. Yes, you were incredible and never dull, like a volcano blowing up in your face. You know, like that one on the island in Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom? Hey, June, you finished strong, and each of your films held over well. Even the likes of Sicario 2 and Uncle Drew were able to excel. We all love superheroes and big dinos Defeating henchmen and bad guys Who cares if plots make any sense We're rather dense And studios will capitalize Because we've proven time and time again We like really bad stuff I mean, did anyone really want An Ocean's 8? But it was pretty good! And I love Sandra Bullock. She is a bomb. Miss Congeniality is a great movie. I'll fight you if you disagree. And Incredibles 2 was like the perfect family movie. And yeah, I know Pixar isn't what they once were, but this is still a step up from a lot of other stuff. And uh, you know, Dress Kingdom or World or Fallen Place, Playground, whatever, you know, just deal with it, it's schlock. It's got big dinosaurs, it's got the best Chris, with Chris Pratt, so it's fine. And Sicario 2, well it wasn't as good as the first one, but what is? So, it's fine. Del Toro and Brolin are amazing, and I'll watch them do anything. And Uncle Drew, I guess people need a fix for professional basketball. It's fine, I swear it's fine.
JVL01:05:09I'm sure it's fine.
Spot something wrong in this episode? Suggest a correction →
Comments
Loading…